So Funny I Forgot To Laugh Trivia Quiz

Answer: James Dean

Chris Farley, Janis Joplin, River Phoenix and many other young celebrities have died from drug overdoses either legal, illegal, intentional or accidental. There are many young people in everyday life wasting their lives away, looking up to these celebrities as being role models.

It is sad that such bright stars can be extinguished with one small mistake. Of course, the mistake may or may not be drug or alcohol related, as in the case of the death of James Dean. An oncoming car on his lane of the highway crashed almost head-on with Dean as he drove his Porsche 550 Spyder to a car race he was to participate in.

Answer: That's as funny as a fart in an elevator

"I am wetting myself laughing", "as funny as a barrel of monkeys", and "you crack me up" are all ways of saying that something is funny. You can probably guess why a fart in an elevator is like saying "that's so funny I forgot to laugh"!

Answer: Lauren Brower

Lauren Brower is a three-time breast cancer survivor. Her book "That's So Funny I Forgot To Laugh" deals with the re-occurrence of cancer at a young age, the emotional impact of metastasis (the spread of disease other non-adjacent organs of parts of the body) and the ability to laugh amid the challenges and struggles of breast cancer, and life-threatening illnesses in general.

Ross B Taylor wrote "Living Simply with Cancer: A Guide to Dealing with Cancer, 2nd Edition" (1998) with Olivia Newton-John writing the foreword. Jimmie C. Holland, MD wrote "The Human Side of Cancer. Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell wrote her memoir "If Only" and has done charity work for the UN's Breast Cancer Care campaign (among other charity work).

Answer: Borat

Once the characters of Borat, Ali-G and Bruno became so recognisable to the world, Sacha Baron Cohen stated that he retired all three characters. All three characters were used to conduct interviews, with the interviewee believed that the interviewing character was legitimate.

Controversial movies starring Borat and Bruno have been called racist and anti-Semitic, yet Baron Cohen says that the characters are used as tools to bring these issues to the forefront of people's minds. Most claims of Baron Cohen being anti-Semitic fell flat when it was realised that he was Jewish himself.

Borat was brought out of retirement in 2020 to star in "Borat Subsequent Movie Film", the sequel to "Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan".

Answer: Galileo Galilei

In 1610, Galileo, after studying Jupiter through a telescope, theorised that there were four satellites revolving around Jupiter, Jupiter revolved around the sun, therefore the sun must be the centre of the universe. Galileo's work was published as "The Starry Messenger" in March 1610 and by December of the same year Galileo had observed the phases of Venus, confirming the theories of Copernicus. Over the years Galileo continued to observe, research and write, with all coming to the attention of the Roman Catholic Church.

Published in around 1632, Galileo Galilei's "Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems" (re-named by Roman Catholic censors) was a discussion on Ptolemy and Copernicus's hypotheses in relation to tides. In 1616 Galileo had been ordered not to discuss any Copernican theory so his new publication resulted in a summons to Rome to face the Inquisition and stand trial for "grave suspicion of heresy". Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment (which ended up as actually being house arrest).

Another Renaissance man, Blaise Pascal (mid 1600s), French mathematician and physicist, was the first constructor of mechanical calculators among other notable things. Benjamin Franklin was a leading author, inventor and scientist (and more!) in the 1700s. Leonardo da Vinci (mid 1400s to early 1500s) was an engineer, architect, philosopher and astronomer.

Answer: Vasectomy

Thanks to my husband on this one. He was too terrified of needles to go and have a vasectomy, so I had the laparoscopic sterilisation (a type of tubal ligation). This is a process where an incision is made near the belly button, and the abdominal cavity is filled with carbon dioxide. Then a camera is inserted into the incision and small clamps (or clips) are placed on the fallopian tubes in order to block meeting of a sperm and an ovum. Side effects include pain in the abdomen, pain at the incision site, and pain in the shoulders ("What?" you say. Shoulder pain is from both from pressure on the diaphragm and from the movement of carbon dioxide in the body). In addition to all this, there is general discomfort and residual effects of anaesthetic (did I mention the pain?).

A tubal ligation may involve cutting or burning of the fallopian tubes, instead of just blocking them with a clamp, ring or clip. The placement of an essure is a completely, totally permanent form of sterilisation (other sterilisation techniques can be reversed but they are difficult, expensive and have a low success rate). An essure is non-surgical and is inserted into the fallopian tubes in order to block them. It can take a few months to be successful but general anaesthesia is not needed for this procedure, so side effects are less prevalent compared with other surgical sterilisations.

Answer: Basketball

Australian-born basketball player Andrew Bogut was first selection draft pick for the Milwaukee Bucks (NBA) in 2005. In a 2010 game against the Phoenix Suns, Bogut broke his arm and hand, dislocated his shoulder and sprained his wrist - all in the one fall - after a slam dunk shot at goal.

Seeing this accident on the late night news once was more than enough for me, and thinking about it still makes me cringe. For anyone who missed this horrific fall and wants to check it out, there are plenty of videos on the net available for you to look at.

Answer: Dream On

"Dream On", created by Marta Kauffman and David Crane (also creators of "Friends") was a cult adult comedy. It looked at the life of Martin Tupper, a man constantly on the lookout for a date but with no clues as to how to relate to women. The title "Dream On" relates to the use of old movie clips within the series used as a metaphor for Tupper's reactions to his present situation.

"The Family Guy", "The Mighty Boosh", and "South Park" are all touted as "cult", "adult" and "comedy" and are shown throughout the world on various television stations. Season Two, episode thirteen of "The Family Guy" was "Road to Rhode Island". "South Park" was "Cows Days", and Season Two of "The Mighty Boosh" only had six episodes.

Answer: Refused Classification

The Refused Classification, or RC, is used instead of an R18+ classification as the R18+ classification only exists for films. This makes things tricky as far as legal issues because RC games are not illegal to own but they are illegal to sell and must not be shown to minors (those under 18 years of age). If you live in Western Australia, however, it IS illegal to own an RC classified video game. There are ways for video game companies to get around some of Australia's classification laws (and some have), but most companies have edited the game to obtain an MA15+ rating, the highest classification for video games in Australia.

Video game bans have affected countries worldwide with Australia having the longest list of banned games. Most bans are as a result of excessive violence, drug use, sexual references and nudity within the game.

Answer: Global Financial Crisis

The Global Financial Crisis (or GFC) resulted in the widespread collapse of large financial institutions, downturns in stock markets and national governments bailing out banks all over the world. The crisis was triggered by high default rates on subprime and adjustable rate mortgages due to the bursting of the US housing bubble in 2005-2006.

In layman's terms, banks lent people money who couldn't afford to pay the money back. As banks weren't making any money, they tried to sell the homes to get their money back, but the houses weren't worth what the banks had lent, the banks then realised that they had absolutely no money, the banks then defaulted on their own loans, and everyone realised that they were up the creek without a paddle. National economies went pear-shaped, governments gave companies lots of money to help them out, huge bonuses went to management of those companies, the general public got angry, and a lot of financial rules were changed so that hopefully this sort of thing doesn't happen again.

Wikipedia gives a detailed version of events if you are interested in finding out the finer points of the GFC.